miles per hour.
The route was what happens to a road in twenty years of thundering Communist tank treads, exploding land mines, and Soviet artillery shelling, the fighting of the Taliban, the muhj and our warplanes. Beyond the damaged hardball, the road was light brown dirt covered by three or four inches of dust as fine as talcum powder. In the wake of every passing vehicle, the dust rose up and then settled again over the latest tire tread marks.
Every mile demonstrated that Afghanistan was truly a war-torn country. We drove by old Taliban outposts, empty barracks, and onetime motor pools that were littered with dozens of banged-up tanks and vehicles. American airpower had ensured they never made it out of the starting blocks. Soviet War-era armored vehicles differed from more recently destroyed Taliban armored vehicles only in the amount of rust on the hulls and carriages, and all of them were now derelicts.
We had not slept well before leaving Bagram, and though Ironhead was still driving our Toyota truck, even he would need to be spelled out at some point on this hellish road. I popped two speed pills to help stay alert.
A few hours east of Kabul, we stopped before reaching the chokepoint village of Sorubi. Adam Khan said it was planned that we meet a second Afghan security force there, which would safeguard the convoy through what he termed “the lawless land from Sorubi to Jalalabad.” Bands of thieves and bandits have raided that highway for centuries. We were not afraid of them, but staying in any one place too long while carrying valuable cargo invited unwanted trouble, and our mission was to go meet General Ali, not fight crooks along this sad stretch of road. The Afghan force didn’t show, and we pressed on without them.
Sorubi was a small village straight out of the Wild West. Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister and mujahideen commander, had controlled passage through the village for the previous decade. Everywhere we looked stood an armed man of fighting age, deeply tanned and curious, with piercing eyes that warned all strangers. When we came upon a half-dozen armed men on the road who were carrying four or five RPGs and assorted rifles, they looked us square in the eyes. Our presence didn’t bother them, and once we had passed, they began to climb a rocky outcrop, likely to one of the many ambush positions that had been successfully used by men just like them against the Soviets. After seeing this tough bunch, we not only wondered who they planned to ambush, but how in the world we would ever be able to distinguish friend from foe in this strange land.
We had just cleared the village when one of the large trucks in our convoy, which was hauling the heavy AK-47 crates, blew an axle. It was no surprise. Adam Khan took the initiative and directed an Afghan leader to commandeer an approaching large and brightly painted truck. An Eastern Alliance fighter yanked the driver from his seat and pulled him to the roadside, where Adam Khan stepped in and gave the man a wad of cash for his troubles.
With a dozen or so muhj, we went to work cross-loading the one hundred crates, each of which contained ten rifles, and several more large cardboard boxes holding load-bearing equipment, into the newly purchased vehicle. The Afghan convoy leader happened to finally notice that nobody was standing guard! He barked orders and waved his hands wildly until several young fighters obediently moved away and took up security positions by squatting down, placing the butts of their rifles on the ground between their legs, and staring out into the vast countryside.
The longer it took to cross-load the equipment, the more attention we drew from locals, who drifted out of the village to see what all the fuss was about. Some were allowed to approach and cautiously moved around, eyeballing us out of curiosity. Some were brave enough to shake hands. None accepted my offer of Redman chewing tobacco.
There was little danger, and no doubt existed about who was in charge. The Afghans in their new U.S. camouflage with their AK-47s had things well under control. After throwing the last few crates into the back of our Toyota and into Adam Khan’s pickup truck, we were back on the road again, heading into the “lawless land.”
For another seven hours or so, the convoy gained and lost thousands of feet in altitude. High in one mountain pass, a little boy with dirty feet and disheveled hair heard us coming before he saw us, and had already jumped into action. He scooped a small makeshift shovel’s worth of dirt and poured it into one of the hundreds of small potholes that characterized every turn of the switchback road. I am sure he thought himself to be a road repairman, and waited for passing vehicles in hopes of securing a small reward for saving the occupants from the heavy jolt of another reverse speed bump.
Dark had fallen by the time the torturous dirt road gave way to the smooth and fast asphalt highway on the western edge of the historic city of Jalalabad. Our opportunity to enjoy the level asphalt did not last long, because the lead vehicle of our convoy abruptly stopped in the middle of the road.
It was a place called Darunta, which was known in terrorism circles as the former site of one of bin Laden’s more sophisticated training camps. As we rolled to a stop, our rearview mirrors showed that some welcomers were banging on the driver’s-side door of one of the transport trucks and barking orders. A moment later, several more men stepped from the darkness, a few gripping small handheld radios and most of them armed. A few of the more hardened ones peered into our windows and things were getting pretty tense. We reached down and checked our weapons.
We had no way of knowing whether this was a friendly encounter, but if these guys were not our scheduled link-up with General Ali’s forces, we might be in trouble.
We were in the middle of fighters loyal to Ali’s rival, the fairly notorious Pashtun warlord Haji Zaman Ghamshareek, who would become very familiar to us all. [12] They tried to intimidate and threaten our drivers by telling them that Zaman controlled the whole city of Jalalabad, so the trucks and that valuable cargo were intended for him. In other words, they intended to hijack the convoy.
We were outnumbered roughly four to one and did not want to get into a scrap with men who might be our allies, so the quick-thinking Adam Khan pulled an ace out of his sleeve. He agreed to follow Zaman’s men into the city, because he had a good idea where General Ali’s people were located and the new convoy route we had been ordered to take would drive us right by them.
We started up again and continued east for a mile or so to an intersection at a place called Du-Saraka, where two more pickup trucks loaded with a half-dozen armed men intercepted the convoy. Once again, we stopped.
This new force of gunmen approached Adam Khan, who filled them in on what was going on. The crew was led by Ali’s nephew, just a teenager, who simply went over and started beating on the guy in charge of Zaman’s group and yelling at him. The rest of Zaman’s people, so brave a few minutes before with a few truck drivers, scurried back into their vehicles like whipped puppies and sped away. In this part of the world, direct and forceful action speaks loud.
That left us with the correct welcoming party and the nephew, who said he would now escort us directly to meet General Ali. If the kid was such a badass, I could hardly wait to meet his uncle.
After a few more checkpoints, we reached Ali’s quarters in the middle of the city and pulled into a walled compound. An Afghan guard directed us specifically where to park, as if we were arriving at a crowded theme park. The two-story tan house was much more upscale than we had imagined. Guards were dutifully posted along the ten-foot-high walls and the building’s rooftops to keep the general and his guests safe, perhaps not so much from the Taliban, which was no longer in power, as from rival tribes.
Inside the walls sprawled an uncanny contradiction to the rest of the town. The yard was well landscaped and manicured. Blooming pink and red flowers hung in large flowerpots from the window ledges, and nothing seemed out of place. Whoever was in charge of Ali’s security was doing a fine job. So was his gardener.
Our bones, backs, and butts were happy to get out of the trucks after the long and grinding ride. One of Colonel Sutter’s men, Manny, was waiting in the parking area and took us inside. He had been one of the first Delta operators in the country after 9/11, and now sported a thick black beard and long hair. He accompanied the CIA team that occupied Bagram Air Base during the Northern Alliance advance toward Kabul, and when the capital city fell, he moved in to scout the city and provided valuable information to our higher headquarters. Manny knew his stuff.
He took us inside and introduced us to a few of the CIA fellows before saying that we wouldn’t be meeting the general as expected that evening, after all. Apparently, the general had been away all day at the front and was now a few kilometers from the battle line. With him was the forward CIA field commander, a veteran operative named George, who was Gary Berntsen’s deputy.
